Maggie had been transferred to Park Hill Sanatorium after several hours in the ER of a private hospital in the centre of the city. The corridors resembled those of a fine hotel, not any medical institution he’d entered. Vases of fresh flowers stood in every corner and alcove, piped music sang discreetly in the corridors. Smiling white-clad staff wandered around nonchalantly. He found it impossible to imagine anything more distant than this place from the chaos and crush of a Roman public hospital. The rich and famous lived differently. Somehow that thought had not occurred to him during the brief time he had known her. Beauty and fame apart, Maggie seemed … ordinary was the word that first occurred to him as he walked to her room, carrying a twenty-dollar bouquet of roses.
Yet he couldn’t get out of his head the image of her standing in front of the paintings in the Legion of Honor, choosing which one — which woman from the past, from someone else’s imagination — she would select for her next role. Maggie Flavier enjoyed being possessed in this way because for a few months or, in the case of Inferno, more, she no longer had to deal with the difficult task of defining her own identity. In the skin of others, she was free to escape the drudgery of everyday existence, the old, unanswerable questions: who am I, and why am I here?
The questions Costa asked himself every day. The ones that made him feel alive. He couldn’t begin to understand why she avoided them with such relentless deliberation. All he felt sure of was that she was aware of this act of self-deception, acutely, for every minute of the performance.
She was beneath the sheets of a large double bed, propped up on pillows next to a wall filled with flowers. The room was large and flooded with light; the window behind her opened onto a gorgeous vista of the skyline of downtown San Francisco and the ocean beyond. Simon Harvey sat on a chair by her side, holding her hand, staring into her tired green eyes with an expression that managed to combine both sympathy and some sense of ownership. Her hair was still blonde, though it now seemed dull and shapeless.
“Nic,” Maggie said, smiling warmly at his appearance.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You didn’t,” Maggie said quietly. “Simon’s an old friend. We did a movie together in the Caribbean. When was it …”
“Five years ago,” Harvey answered, releasing her hand, still not looking in Costa’s direction. The publicist seemed different in America — more at home, more powerful. In Rome he’d appeared a tangential, almost servile figure, running round the set at Cinecittà doing the bidding of anyone who called, Tonti or Bonetti or even Allan Prime. Here, in Maggie’s room, he didn’t look like the kind of man to take orders. “Piece of derivative pirate crap posing as art-house. It bombed. At least we got paid. Not everyone did.”
Harvey stood. He seemed bigger somehow in the bright, hard California light streaming through the long windows.
“I don’t know whether I should shake you by the hand or punch you in the mouth. If it wasn’t for you, Maggie might not be alive. And she might not have gotten into this situation to begin with. What do you think?”
“I wouldn’t advise the second. It would be impolite, and I can’t imagine anyone in the publicity business would want that.”
“You’re a smart-ass, Costa. Maybe you can get away with that in Rome. You won’t get away with it here. Remember that when you need me.”
“Simon,” Maggie protested, “will you stop being so rude? I told you a million times — it was my idea to play hooky from all that tedium at the exhibition. If you want to blame someone, blame me.”
“I do. And him. The pair of you.” He extended his hand to Costa. “But Maggie’s alive and I’m grateful for that. And now the two of you are all over the papers. So I have a professional interest, too.”
His grip was firm and powerful.
“Not in me you don’t,” Costa said.
“Please,” Maggie implored him. “Sit down, Nic. Hear Simon out.” She looked at him and Costa couldn’t interpret what was in her eyes. Dependence? Fear? “He’s my publicist, too. Not just the movie’s. My advisor. I need you to listen to him.”
Costa sat down on the end of the bed and said, “But first I need you to tell me how you are. That’s why I came here.”
The actress leaned back against the pillows. Her face fell into the shadow cast by the long drapes.
“I’m exhausted, my head hurts, I’m full of dope and glucose. I’ve had worse hangovers.” A scowl creased her half-hidden face. “It was an allergy, that’s all. All I needed was a shot — and thanks to you, that happened — and I’ll be fine. They say I can leave here soon. The premiere’s next Thursday. I’ll be fine for that.”
“Why the rush?”
“What kind of business do you think this is?” Harvey demanded. “Get up at ten, work for an hour, then go home and party? Celebrity never stops. Not for weekends. Not for sickness. Not for anything.”
“I understand that.”
Maggie shook her head. “No, you don’t. No one can. Not until it happens.”
“You don’t even escape it when you’re dead,” Harvey said. “Josh Jonah’s people are looking at outtake footage of Allan Prime right now, seeing what they can CGI for the sequel. That’s going to be an interesting one for the money men. Who gets the fee?”
“What?” Costa was unable to comprehend what he was saying.
“There’s going to be a second Inferno,” Maggie told him. “They’ll work up Allan’s outtakes on computers.”
“God knows what the story line’s going to be,” Harvey barked with mirthless laughter. “How many circles can Hell have? Mind you, Roberto didn’t bother so much with that for the original. Why worry now? After what’s happened, all the publicity, the interest … Inferno’s no longer just a movie. It’s becoming an obsession. And that could mean a franchise. A brand. Like Sony or McDonald’s or Leonardo da Vinci. They could get eight years, maybe even a decade out of this. With or without Tonti. Or any of us. When something’s this big, no one’s indispensable.”
The publicist took Maggie’s hand again. “And she — my friend and my client — is going to be a part of that brand. I’m going to make sure of that. A precious and important part. If we handle this story about the two of you right, it works in everyone’s favour. Maggie’s. Yours. The movie’s—”
“I am not your client,” Costa interrupted, suddenly angry. “I am not in your business.”
“You are now,” Harvey retorted. “Don’t you get it? The moment those pictures of you two appeared in the papers, you lost everything you ever had. Your privacy. Your identity. Your soul. It’s all out there …” He pointed to the window. “You’ve just become the livelihood of people you wouldn’t wish on a dog. They feed their kids off you, they take their wives and their mistresses out to dinner on what you make for them. Break that deal …”